If Stanley Fish is for it, I'm agin it

The (self-proclaimed?) dean of American pomo philosophers says the Supreme Court got Westboro wrong. For a philosopher of language in America to hold that shows just how shallow he can be.

On language in general, perhaps Fish should read an Errol Morris column.

Another inequality of the War on Drugs

If you or I accumulated $2 million in drug sale assets and were convicted, we'd get life in jail.

If you're a former DA, and embezzle from asset seizure funds of the same amount, you get a slap on the wrist.

Magic in secular as well as religious forms

Midway into a long article about the decline of empires in general, and the likely declining of America's in particular, Chris Hedges talks about the belief by many evangelical Christians, and how it's a form of magical escapism, at least today.

But he then goes on to note:

The faith that science and technology, which are morally neutral and serve human ambitions, will make the world whole again is no less delusional. We offer up our magical thinking in secular as well as religious form.

Indeed, indeed. Click the "salvific technologism" tag, and you'll see I have written a lot about this.

We think we have somehow escaped from the foibles of the past. We are certain that we are wiser and greater than those who went before us. We trust naively in the inevitability of our own salvation.

That's why an Obama won't do more on global warming.

Robert Gates, moral coward

Tom Engelhardt has a great story on the Secretary of Defense's farewell tour, and what it omits: a plan for leaving Afghanistan.

Rather than dipping into the national oil reserve

President Obama and his Chief of Staff, Bill "The Other" Dailey, are proposing opening the national oil reserve to deal with the recent crude oil and gasoline price spikes.

I have an even better idea. Since we know that speculators were part of the run-up to the $147 price in 2008, how about some legislative action?

But, oh, no, those speculators give too much money to neolib Democrats like Obama.

Wisconsin Dems cave

If this WSJ story is correct, "cave" is the only word to be used for the 14 Democrats of the Wisconsin state senate.

The 14 think that bill Gov. Scott Walker wants to pass, ending collective bargaining for state unionized employees, will "taint" him and the rest of the state GOP.

"Taint"? As if far-right GOPers are worried about that.

Once again, Democrats lack both clues and gonads at the same time.

On the clueless front, here's Dem. state Sen. Miller:

He said he thinks recent polls showing voter discontent with Mr. Walker over limits on bargaining rights have been "disastrous" for the governor and Republicans and give Democrats more leverage to seek changes in a broader two-year budget bill Mr. Walker proposed Tuesday.

Really? Let's hear from the other side of the aisle.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Sunday night that the "budget repair" bill can't be amended at this point. But it's possible that over the next few weeks adjustments could be made to Mr. Walker's broader budget plan, he said.

I'm sure any such adjustments will be minor and cosmetic.

Beyond that, what if they're wrong? Looking at this in a zero-sum way, Walker wins because Dems caved. That's going to be the story line.

Why wouldn't it? In another story, the Wisconsin 14 admitted negotiations had failed, and apparently, they weren't ready to play hardball beyond that, depsite poll numbers trending their way.

Of course, Walker said polls didn't sway him. (Unless funded by the Koch brothers, of course!):

"If I governed by polls I'd still be in the state Assembly," Mr. Walker said on Friday. "I won reelection twice as county executive in an area of the state that went two-thirds for President Obama by identifying a problem, telling people how I was going to deal with it, and then moving forward with the solution."

Again, Walker was ready to play this as a zero-sum game, and so he won.

And, it's not just the collective bargaining bill. It's the zero-sum, winner-takes-all tactics in general. Don't the Wisconsin 14 read e-mails or whatever from their constituents, talking about stuff like this?

I understand you have a senator who is seven months pregnant. That said, to be honest, even if it sounds a bit cold, how that affected your calculations should have been discussed in advance of the walkout. If you had followed the details of the similar situation in Texas of several years ago, you knew that you could be out of state for quite some time.

And, speaking more of tactics ... what if union works just stay home from the polls more, figuring Wisconsin Democrats are fair-weather friends?

As for the claims of Miller that the Wisconsin 14 haven't announced a "date certain" for return, that's just window dressing. You've announced you're throwing in the towel and that's the bottom line.

Does Wisconsin have much of a Green party?

===

Update: First, this TPM story touted as proof the WSJ story is wrong? The first two grafs are spin, nothing more. There's no "denial" there.

Second, state Sen. Chris Larsen's Facebook comment, and the Politico storyreferencing it? Two specific additional points.

1. While the WSJ news department, on political news, isn't as bad or close to it as its op-ed page, nonetheless, it isn't sterling. If Miller in particular, or the Wisconsin 14 in general, had nothing new to say, then why tell that to the WSJ?
2. If you really, really aren't coming back until Walker pulls the bill and resubmits it without the collective bargaining issue, why not draw a line in the sand? If one of the quasi-sympathetic Republicans in the state senate will be sympathetic enough to walk out with you, you can do that for sure.

Would you put a FB-based comment system on your blog?

Well, Facebook has one coming out, and it would surely be tempting for corporations, such who'd like to target advertising onto Facebook pages, get more information about commenters than they do now, and so forth — i.e., old and new media companies.

From the individual blogging side?

Yeah, it would be tempting to put a Facebook-driven commenting system on my blog for exactly the reason the story mentioned — exposing my blog to friends of commenters who have FB accounts. But, it's anti-tempting for exactly the reason the story mentioned — expanding the tentacles of Facebook.

George Will basts 4-5 on 2012 GOP field

George Will is spot-on when he says Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich probably can't gain enough public trust to run a lemonade stand, let alone the White House.

As for five five relatively sensible GOP candidates? I agree on Mitch Daniels, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman. But, after numerous gaffes already by the Mouth of Mississippi, if Will thinks Haley Barbour is a viable candidate, his picker's still a bit broken.

Another reason law is less desireable

There's been a spate of stories in the last year or so about how more and more law school graduates are struggling to find jobs.

The recession usually gets the blame.

Maybe it's time to "blame" technology instead; new software is replacing many lawyers.

Computers allow much "discovery" work in civil cases to be done electronically, and without drudgery complaint:

“(E)-discovery” software can analyze documents in a fraction of the time (of lawyers) for a fraction of the cost. In January, for example, Blackstone Discovery of Palo Alto, Calif., helped analyze 1.5 million documents for less than $100,000.

Wow. And, that was before Watson won at Jeopardy!

And, not to get too Luddite, but, while some people talk about technology creating new jobs, what kind of jobs are they?

“There is no reason to think that technology creates unemployment,” MIT Professor David H. Autor said. “Over the long run we find things for people to do. The harder question is, does changing technology always lead to better jobs? The answer is no.”

And, anticipating Watson II:

“The economic impact will be huge,” said Tom Mitchell, chairman of the machine learning department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “We’re at the beginning of a 10-year period where we’re going to transition from computers that can’t understand language to a point where computers can understand quite a bit about language.”

There's even supposedly software that can recognize the "tone" of an e-mail. If that improves, a la Watson II type computers, customer service reps are probably also in danger of losing more jobs.

Specific to law, jobs can also be outsourced. India has plenty of good English speakers who have grown up in the Anglo half of Anglo-American legal traditions.

The five-year plan for getting greener

Like most five-year plans, it's in a communist country, namely, China.

But, it makes blunt economic sense even without the environmental angle, for China to do this.

For example, China is about to pass the U.S. on the amount of oil it imports. So, even after Libya settles down, no matter who "wins," worldwide demand will keep pushing.

Of course, part of the plan is bass-ackwards environmentally. Pushing for more electric cars may control oil imports a bit, but, with a coal-heavy electric power grid, it will likely increase air pollution, if anything.

That said, this is the first time China has set consumption goals, not just efficiency goals, limited as they may be.

Boboes, fictionalized to the second power

I've always thought David Brooks wrote fiction whenever he talked about his stereotypical suburban "boboes." (And, if you Google, there's websites that document instances of lying about and making up details of bobo life.)

Never did I think he would go novelistic on the world, though. But, given the stupidity, insularity, conventionality and timidity of the New York publishing world, I shouldn't be surprised that moment has happened.

His new Pop Ev Psych through bobo consciousness book is excerpted here.

And, really reviewed here, far more snarkily than even I might do, courtesy Pharyngula!

Die, bobo, die!

Why is Ryno in the HOF and Sweet Lou isn't?

For several years, while not embracing Ryne Sandberg as a Hall of Fame member, I haven't argued he should be removed.

That said, why isn't Lou Whitaker there with him?

If you look at their stats, they're the same player.

(Actually, Sweet Lou's OPS+, oWAR and dWAR are all slightly higher.)

So, how is Whitaker not only not in the HOF, but how did he only get 2.9 percent of writers' votes his first year, and thereby get forcibly dropped from the ballot for the future?

A travesty indeed.

And, given that Whitaker retired one year after Sandberg's second and final retirement, it's not like writers couldn't directly compare them.

The only things where Sandberg has an edge is modestly superior home run power and many more stolen bases.

That said, per the ESPN link, Ryno did have a "peak" that Sweet Lou didn't:

One could argue that Sandberg's best was better than Whitaker's best, and that's probably true. Whitaker was never QUITE as good as Sandberg was in '83, and didn't have four consecutive seasons that can quite match Ryno's '89-'92. But he also didn't suffer the valleys Sandberg did in the mid-'80s, and I'd argue that "consistently good and sometimes great" can be just as valuable as "inconsistent but sometimes slightly greater."

But, as the story notes, it can also be argued Ryno had less Gold Glove competition in the NL than Sweet Lou did in the AL.

Friday Macho scatblogging

To be precise, this is Macho B scatblogging, as in the Arizona jaguar well-known to many environmentalists.

A federal judge has upheld the Arizona Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's right to snare the jaguar, but did NOT dismiss charges against Janay Brun, the private research technician who has admitted using jaguar scat as "bait" at the site Macho B was snared.

I hope Brun doesn't get hung out to dry in court for being a whistle-blower. Or simply for not being a government employee.

Given that Emil McCain, a fellow employee of the private Borderlands Jaguar Detection Project, contracted by the state and federal agencies to help with jaguar snaring, pled guilty last year on this very case, that wouldn't surprise me.

But, given the history of this case so far, and especially her history within it, Brun very likely is being hung out to dry.

That's not to mention the hypocrisy of the jaguar being listed on the Endangered Species Act, but the federal government doing nothing to actually protect it, like restricting cattle grazing on the Mogollon Rim, creating protection areas, etc.

Once again, can you smell the sweet smell of hypocrisy?

How the U.S. could intervene in Libya

The Department of Justice has never officially closed its case on the Lockerbie bombing. That includes never shelving the indictment of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, "compassionately" released to Libya by Scotland a year or so ago under major, lied-about pressure from London.

Suitable pressure on Gaddafi, with the "carrot" of a leave-the-country deal, could be put together.

Vote fraud, GOP style

Instead of "caging," "voter ID bills" and other nonsense, if the GOP was serious about vote fraud (and it's not), it would look at its own. Like Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White.

Tea Party schadenfreude, dried out and warmed up

Arizona is of course a hotbed of illegal (and general) immigrant stereotyping, along with being near the top in birtherism, and home to one of our biggest political hypocrites, John McCain. Well Schmuck Talk Express and others better find a way to get one-third more water to their area. Ditto for Orange County denialists, as California is already the most "overdrawn" state by absolute water numbers as well as percentages.

The thumbnail is here.

All the details on how climate change will affect the Southwest are here (PDF).

Nothing short of cutting ag use by nearly 50 percent AND hiking prices by that much to push non-ag conservation will really help.

Going by value, the ag answer is simple - eliminate hay growing, at least the irrigated variety. Change rice to winter wheat followed by rapid-grow summer corn. Cut back on beans, which do OK as a dryland crop anyway.

The bottom-line question about water is not whether adaptation is difficult or expensive, compared to doing nothing. Rather, it should be compared to buying several trillion dollars worth of water over the next century; adaptation is a bargain that the region cannot afford to ignore. The implication for climate policy is similar: although doing something about greenhouse gas emissions is expensive, doing nothing would cost even more. Among the benefits of global emission reduction is a savings of hundreds of billions of dollars in the future cost of water, or the avoidance of water scarcity, in the five states of the Southwest.

Part of my solution?

Let's not try to "repair" Nevada's casino-based economy. If Federal job training includes moving people out of that state, with the nation's highest per-capita residential use, do it!

Second, find a way to undercut economic development corporations that don't adequately price water as part of their recruiting pitch.

That said, the authors wrote their study while ignoring the Colorado River Compact, and admit they did that as a simplifying measure. In reality, the "project" is even more difficult than they paint.

Not all tea partiers are anti-environmental

At least not when it's their ox that's being gored, in the case of personal property. Texans resisting the proposed transcontinental pipeline for tar sands oil from Canada might provide an example of how to better "sell" environmentalism to more people.

That said, in reality? The mindset of the great majority of tea partiers will lead them to continue to have a NIMBY stance on environmental issues. If the issue is out of sight, then it's out of mind.

Cracks in the Texas GOP

State Rep. Jim Pitts wants to tap into the state's Rainy Day fund, and he has recruited Comptroller Susan Combs to help pitch the idea.

That said, Gov. Rick Perry stands opposed. As do tea partiers to whom he has pandered, tea partiers that gave the GOP its House supermajority.

But, Pitts has at least one other heavy hitter on his side. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst agrees with him.

But, as the GOP's 2012 U.S. Senate field fleshes out, will Dewhurst have tea party pressure to change his stance?

At the same time, Combs indirectly warned Pitts not to take too much.

Why not? Per the first link, she's worried about the economy still not being too hot in 2013, it seems:

Combs, though, warned lawmakers to consider how tough budget-writing is expected to be in the 2013 session.

Gov. Helmethair, I'm sure, will continue to sound like Sarah Palin on the state of the Texas economy.

EPA about to be a political sellout again

Don't be at all surprised if the EPA's final report on fracking water quality and needed regulation is more watered down than what it's supposed to regulate.

When even a Carol Browner favors giving the oil and gas industry pretty much of a pass on this issue, you know that the deal is in the bag. And, with that said, you know that serious U.S. stances on global warming by "serious insiders" aren't going to get better in the future.

So, if Al Armandirez here in Texas makes too, too much of a stuck, EPA may put him on a short leash.

The opposite of "scientism" is???

I have had no problem labeling the thought processes of people like P.Z. Myers and Sam Harris with the tag of "scientism" at times when it was clear they were trying to address nonscientific issues from a scientific point of view. Especially with Harris, allegedly a philosopher because he has a degree in the subject, it's frustrating, off-putting, undercuts the "cause" of secularism and more.

Philosopher Massimo Pigliucci also has no problem pegging people like that.

So, it's a bit disconcerting when he says social science research into people's moral judgment thinking not only is not philosophy, but that it can't even lead to philosophy, in his perspective.

And, so, I ask, the opposite of scientism, in this case, is ...

"Philosophism"?

His argument, in a nutshell, is in a comment of his near the end of the comment thread:

Similarly, we evolved the ability to make moral judgment, but that doesn't begin to equip us for professional-level moral reasoning ...

I saw "professional-level moral reasoning," which I inadvertently shortened to "professional moral reasoning" (though I don't think that significantly changed anything) and ... well, I cringed.

It's like Massimo wants to do data-free, research-free philosophy. And, even if (I'm not going to say "even though") he may not have meant it in an elitist way, it sure comes off that way, which is the main reason I cringed.

Reading about Willie, and Mickey ... and the Hammer

Sorry, I've not come across a Duke Snider biography.

That said, I have recently read new biographies of (from oldest to newest) Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle and Henry Aaron.

Overall, from oldest to newest, they descended from best to worst.

On Amazon, I gave the Mays bio five stars, the Mantle one four, and the Aaron one, "The Last Hero," three.

From: "Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend"

I feel a bit of sadness about Willie, having read this book, the same sadness I had as a 9-year-old in 1973, watching him stumble when rounding second, trying to go from first to third on a single, in the 1973 World Series, and having to crawl back to second.

Whether due more to innate personality tendencies, his own reactions to segregation in his native Alabama in general, or associated with baseball, his family of origin, or a combination of this and more, it's sad that he doesn't open up even more.

And while I, being Caucasian, am in no position to judge Willie on his activism in civil rights, and agree with him that we don't all have the same temperament, Hirsch does show how Robinson and Aaron could wish so hard for more from him and be frustrated he didn't give that. ...

But, the not opening up is itself part of Mays. Hirsch also does a good job of showing how Mays, in his own quiet way, refuted or rejected various stereotypes.

From "The Last Boy" review:

Specifically, the one major new thing in this bio — Mantle's childhood sexual abuse suffering — is exactly what (Mantle hagiographers) most object to, and what I find one of the strengths of the book. That said, because Leavy chooses NOT to write a more traditional, fully chronological biography, we don't get this information until near the end of the book. Too close to the end, in my opinion; Leavy, without a chronological style, could still have introduced it near the start of Mantle's post-playing life, rather than when the book is 90 percent done. And then, she could have built on it more, more thoroughly interweaving it with his womanizing and his alcoholism.

From "The Last Hero" review, talking about Howard Bryant's authorial style:

Third, is the "Henry" style. Howard Bryant, serious baseball fans know Aaron went by "Henry" and not "Hank." To call everybody else by last name, but throughout the whole book, call Aaron "Henry," "Henry," "Henry" became annoying. It then rose to irritating, and even a bit beyond that.

Fourth, if you're going to do that, apply it similarly to other ballplayers. Calling Dick Allen "Richie"? MAJOR faux pas.

Fifth, why is he "The Last Hero"? Yes, publishers often have the final say on book titles, but I suspect this one came from Bryant. Is it because he got the home run record without roiding? Is it because he was the last player from the "semi-pioneering" age of African-American ballplayers? We're never clearly told.

Anyway, even Bryant's bio is worth a read.

Norm Ornstein said it

"Cable news is a joke."

Ornstein was talking about Faux News' decision to "suspend" Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, now that they've formed presidential exploratory committees. (On a side note, what keeps Ornstein at AEI, anyway?)

In the same "Room for Debate," I was surprised Fred Wertheimer didn't call for reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

More HuffPuff boo-hoo

They're crying again about not getting a cut of Arianna's $350M from AOL.

Actually, one of her paid honchos has it about right. Mario Ruiz, the Senior Vice President of Media Relations at the Huffington Post, said:

"The vast majority of our bloggers understand the value of having a platform that reaches a very large audience. People blog on HuffPost for free for the same reason they go on cable TV shows every night for free – because they are passionate about their ideas, want them to be heard by the largest possible audience, and understand the value that that kind of visibility can bring."

"Our bloggers can choose to write for HuffPost – or not write for HuffPost," he continued. "They can write as often as like they like or as little as they like. It’s both wrong and offensive to insist that HuffPost is exploiting journalists."

It's vanity blogging.

And, as for the Newspaper Guild joining in the moaning? Hey your owners and mine screwed up on the Internet going on 15 years ago. Crying for HuffPuffers won't change that.

And, they irony, and more, is that this story is on a free news aggregator website. Get a fucking clue, Newspaper Guild!

Bonobos "shout it out"

It being sex, that is. Why?

For social status, as in, look who I just banged.

No, seriously. In all cases, whether gay or straight sex, if we may use human terms, the female who is lower on the "clan's" social scale is the one who whoops it up while making whoopie.

I am sure there's some legitimate evolutionary psychology finding that can be mined from this, and I'm also sure there's some Pop Ev Psych bullshit that will also be mined.

Autism genes and brain development

Tentative, quite tentative, findings indicate that of autism genes known so far (and we can't stress that enough), they play little role in brain functioning, but DO play more of a role in brain development.

That said, some of the same research indicates that what role they play in functioning is in part related to glutamate.

That said, between this and other factors showing both parents can have a genetic influence on autism, that parental age at child birth is a factor (old, decaying stem-cell genetic material) and related things, it does seem clear that we're still a long way from more in the way of answers.

Scooter Libby is nuts about Turkey

And, not in a good sense.

While I agree that Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan needs some degree of eye kept on him vis-a-vis "Islamist" issues, Libby's history telling is selective. The constitutional reforms had been pushed long before Erdogan came to power. Northern Cyprus? A reaction to EU and US one-sidedness toward Greece.

What Libby doesn't like isn't that, but a once-pliant "client state" flexing its muscles, all because of a clusterfuck he supported and lied about. (Speaking of that, his end-of-column tagline has not a word about his criminal history, or his not-officially-charged-but-criminal-in-spirit history.)

Volt doesn't make a lot of sense

That's the word of Consumer Reports, which notes that the model it bought for testing, after a $5K GM markup (which eliminates federal tax breaks — way to go, company that's been on the federal dime!) costs twice as much as a Toyota Prius AND, if driven enough to have to switch to its gas motor, can actually get lower mileage.

Koch Brothers hypocrisy alert

Yes, it was nice that Charles G. Koch mentioned the military as well as entitlements in his op-ed.

But there were two magic missing words: "corporate welfare."

Hey, Charles and David, whenever you're ready to give up some oil industry tax deductions, and say so in public, THEN you can write an op-ed that I'll take with less skepticism.

As for specific handouts? Charles and David get more than oil bucks from Daddy Federal Warbucks. They include ethanol subsidies, logging road subsidies, free dairy grazing on federal land subsidies, and making deals with socialist governments. Don't forget their old man got his start with Uncle Joe Stalin!

Also, until you, looking back on the current deficits, say what you would have done differently on the financial crisis, you don't get 100 percent seriousness on the deficit. Nor do you get seriousness on military spending until you can find a quote from five years ago similar to one from today.

More on the shady dealings here of Bros. Koch here.

FiredogLake has a brilliant deconstruction of how this column explodes in Koch's face if you change the focus from the federal budget to climate change and make other changes accordingly.